Noticed
by Sonia
Summary: Severus realises a dream. But why does Hermoine want to cry? The explanation is in the pages of our heroine's journal.
1. Default Chapter

Noticed

By Sonni

Rating – PG-13

Summary – Wand to wand combat and a fallen idol bring a change of heart for Hermoine. 

Disclaimer: All characters are the property of JK Rowling and I am writing this little missive purely for my own amusement and as the result of too much diet Coke while watching Chamber of Secrets. No money is being made. 

"There will be no foolish wand waving or incantations . . ."

With those words you captured my mind as a young witch craving to learn but it was another lot of wand waving nearly a year later that showed me a little more of the real Severus Snape. 

It was the first time I had seen wizards in wand to wand combat, even if it was only in the name of our education. 

After the Chamber of Secrets had been opened and the attacks began on my fellow students, the love of my teenage life - Gilderoy Lockhart, had thought it would be useful for us to know how to duel. 

He had dragged you into the Great Hall to oppose him, thinking it would show his alleged skills to their best advantage. You definitely showcased Lockhart's true skills that afternoon – the subtle arts of grandstanding and blatant self love. 

"Expelliarmus!" Bolts of light flew from your wand, hitting Lockhart flush in the chest, knocking him off the stage and into a wall. He slid down the wall like an egg slid off a teflon frying pan. Looking back now, you couldn't have done more damage to his ego if you had punctured it with a titanium hat pin. 

So many of the second year girls had crushes on Professor Lockhart at that time. Going back to the dormitories with the other Gryffindor girls, the afternoon's events had been rehashed and theorised over to the last degree. Given your self confessed hatred of wand waving, none of us ever realised you would be as handy with your wand as you are with a mortar and pestle preparing the ingredients for the most complicated of potions. We thought you were unleashing whatever anger and bitterness that hadn't been directed towards us in our last potions class and targeting yet another person who had robbed you of the Defence Against Dark Arts position.

Gilderoy Lockhart was a god in our untrained eyes. Someone to be worshipped and idolised, in the fleeting hope we would be adored back. Yet, that afternoon something changed for me. 

I discovered that gods can and do have feet of clay and weren't always as perfect as they seemed. Other qualities such as a scorching intellect, an acid wit and being able to unleash both of them in the direction of charlatans began to take on more importance. Shoulder length black hair instead of a floppy blonde mop that resembled spaniel's ears started to feature in my dreams. 

A brush of lips on the crook of my neck startled me out of my reverie. 

"Severus! At my squeal of recognition, Crookshanks lifted his head from the corner of the bed, glared at us in that imposing way all cats seem to possess and then settled back to an afternoon nap. 

"Writing in your journal again my love?"

"Yes, you've caught me out dead to rights. I wanted to document the time I first began to notice you as a man and a wizard, brave of heart and mind. 

"No need for poetry," Severus wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his wife of one year. His fingers began stroking her pregnant belly. 

"There is my darling. The war nearly robbed us of the simple pleasures of poetry, love and laughter so I want this little one to know how you captured a place in her mum's heart."

"Well then, I can't wait to see how you explain some of the other chapters in our relationship," Severus laughed.


	2. Of Tears and Werewolves

Chapter 2 – Of Tears and Werewolves

Disclaimers etc in part one.

A/N – Some quotes in this chapter are borrowed from Prisoner of Azkaban by the wonderful JK Rowling. 

I watched you realise a dream during my third year at Hogwarts.

You were finally teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons and it certainly was an interesting class. Professor Lupin was absent and we were all wondering who would be taking the class. Then you walked in. 

The very sight of you striding into class in your almost samurai warrior like robes scared me more than the worst fit of temper you could ever unleash against us in potions class. Harry's late arrival distracts you from attacking Neville in yet another class. 

I really resented the thoughtless remarks you made about the class being behind in its learning and pushing us straight into werewolves and how to identify them. Parvati protested and my hand remained in the air, the answer unsaid. Your treatment of us would have melted stone. 

Your threats to go to Dumbledore with how far behind we are make me all the more determined to show you are not teaching a class of idiots. 

"That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger," you intoned. I suddenly knew how an accused man felt before the firing squad cocked their rifles.

"Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know it all."

Ouch. At that point all my famous Gryffindor courage went south faster than a migrating duck that had spent too long in the marshes. It was one of those moments when everyone, and perhaps even all the class knew, you had gone way too far. 

That hurt almost as much as Draco calling me a mudblood last year. I wanted to run. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream at you to stop being such a greasy git but I did nothing. 

Ron goes on the attack, fueled by loyalty and the stubborn nature of red heads, but you give him with detention and perhaps worse if he continued.

The rest of the class continued with the sort of tense silence that would make you want to vomit. For once in my academically inclined life, I have never been so happy to leave a classroom. 

Yet, I still want to cry.

Pregnancy hormones can do strange things to a woman my little princess, I think as I close my journal and fold my hands across my rapidly expanding stomach. In a few months your father and I will be holding you. Even though it took years and a war against the darkest of dark magic to develop, it is amazing that from something that started so badly, something so positive can be created. 


End file.
